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Summer has officially begun. Still, temperatures recorded in some European countries recently told stories of a continent that remains gripped by the cold claws of winter, according to the Jamaica Observer.

Such variable climatic conditions is often conflated with climate change and obscures fruitful debate about climatic realities.

Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre Dr. Kenric Leslie, CBE recently addressed this issue in an email conversation with the Jamaica Observer.

Dr Kenrick Leslie, told the paper that late winters are not unprecedented, and they do not mean that the Earth isn’t warming.

One must differentiate between climate change and climate variability. Climate change doesn't mean variability will stop, in the same way that climate change won't cause hurricanes to stop in the Caribbean. What is happening in Europe can be attributed to the natural variability effect; there's late winter effect and early winter effect. So this must be seen in a global sense.While Europe may be experiencing a late winter, others might be experiencing an early spring effect. Last year, in the United States, they had very early spring," Dr Leslie said.